University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
GRAPES OF THORNS.

YOUR ride has done you good, Peter,” says Mrs.
Whiteflock, running out to meet him as he drove
into the door-yard.

“Yes,” says Peter, “it's done me good;” and
he tried to get a smile into his face, but it was
like the sun trying to shine through a thick cloud. As he
got out of the carriage he staggered and fell against Posey.
She turned her head and licked the hand that he put out
toward her. “It ain't nothing, my beauty,” says he, pulling
playfully at her ear. “I done it a purpose.”

But when he again tried to walk, he staggered again, put
out his hand helplessly, as one who feels his way, and before
his wife could get to him, had fallen to the ground.

“It's nothing, Martha,” he says, “the ride has done me
good and I shall feel it by and by, but just now I'm a little
stiff.”

“Now the Lord pity us, and send us help,” cries Mrs.
Whiteflock; and turning about in her anxious bewilderment,
she stood face to face with Samuel Dale.

“O, my good friend,” he says, “has it come to this!” And
he puts his strong arms round Peter, and hugs him to his
bosom.

“Don't let her know,” whispers Peter, and then he says
aloud and cheerfully, “I shall be all right in a minute.”

Posey had turned the carriage about and with the rein
dragging after her along the ground, now came up and put
her head between her master's knees.

“Uncle Charley!” calls Samuel, rising and beckoning
towards the roadside. The stranger thus summoned, who
had been waiting in his phaeton at the gate, came to the
ground with the spring of a boy, and was almost immediately

in the circle. There was no introduction and no
need of one; he understood the matter at a glance; dashed
off hat and coat, and sending his elegant whip to the ground
after them, had half Peter's weight upon his arm in a moment,
and so, with Samuel on the other side, they got him
into the house, and up the broad staircase to the beautiful
chamber, which the wife had with her own hands been setting
in order all that day, as for some strange and honored
guest.

“Now make all haste and fetch the doctor,” says Samuel
to the stranger as soon as Peter was laid upon the bed.

He nodded assent, asking simply whether it was Dr.
Dosum or Dr. Allprice that was to be fetched.

“He's got acquainted speedy,” says Peter, rousing a little
and trying to speak with animation, as sick persons will to
dissipate the fears of those about them.

“Yes,” says Samuel, replying in the same vein, “he's got
a quick eye; he'll soon find you out, all of you!”

“O, Sam, my friend, my good friend!” says Peter, when
they were alone, “if all this could have happened sooner!”

And then he picked at the lace frills of the pillows to
divert and set himself up a little.

“Ay, Peter,” says Samuel, gazing tenderly upon the wan
face, “if it had only happened sooner, and he hid his eyes
beneath his hand.

Peter pulled at his sleeve, Mrs. Whiteflock was come back
into the room.

Then Samuel made as if he had been yawning, and took
up a sentence in the middle as though concluding what had
been broken off. “You'll like him,” says he, “everybody
does.” And then he explains to Mrs. Whiteflock that he
was telling Peter about his uncle, and then he goes on in
earnest, but talking much as if he were talking to a child.
“Why, Peter, I am going to be so rich I shan't know what
to do with my money!” he says. “You must make haste
and get well and help me to spend it!” And then he says,
“O, you are looking ever so much better now than when I
came upon you turning somersets in the yard. Why, what
a boy you are, to be sure!” Then he comes back to “Uncle
Charley.” “He is going to live here in this quiet place,” he
says. “You would never expect such a gay, worldly man to
settle down in a sober way like that.” And then he imparts

it as a great secret that he is going to marry Miss Lightwait.
“It'll be strange enough,” he says, “if I get into that family,
after all.”

“Katherine Lightwait will never marry any one,” says
Mrs. Whiteflock, “at least nobody thinks she will ever
marry.”

“You're wrong, there, Martha,” says Peter, making a
desperate effort to appear interested, “and so is the rest of
'em; she'll marry this man; more's the pity, Sam, if he is
your kin.”

Samuel admits that his Uncle Charley was a little wild in
his youth, and that he has heard said he married for money,
spent it foolishly and then separated from the woman, leaving
her penniless. But for his part, he says, he has only
known him by hearsay till lately. And then he tells how
good and more than kind his Uncle Charley has been to him
during the time he has really known him, and concludes with
the assertion that he doesn't believe all he hears.

“And is the woman dead?” inquires Mrs. Whiteflock.

Samuel says he does not positively know, but he is sure
his Uncle Charley gave him that impression. When they
were left alone again, Peter pulled Samuel down to him and
whispered, “It's all right at last, Sam, between your mistress
and me; we was married in full, this morning.”

“God 'a' mercy,” says Samuel, “how glad I am!”

“As I rode through the village to-day,” Peter went on,
“I see a sign which was this — John Gates & Co., and it
kind o' come to me that that was the way it had been with
me; I had been the Co., like, and that now I was being took
to full partnership.”

After a little, he fell into a doze and talked ramblingly of
his wedding, as though the event had just taken place.

The doctor, when he came, found it difficult to arouse him,
and when he succeeded at last, Peter did not recognize him,
but called him Luther, and apologized for being still in existence.

“Delirium is rather a favorable indication,” says the
doctor, addressing himself to Mrs. Whiteflock, who stood
trembling at the foot of the bed, “and in our patient's case
it is the natural effect of this little attack he has had, a mere
vertigo, madam, and of no serious moment.

“We will take a little blood,” he says, “and to-morrow

morning I will be bound his appetite will be such that you
will have to call upon Mr. Stake for an extra sirloin.” At
this point he laughed, and whipped out his lancet as though
it were rather a pleasant little affair all round.

Uncle Charley, who had returned with the doctor, led
Mrs. Whiteflock away, and in the course of ten minutes'
conversation, and the graceful performing of various little
services, for he contrived to make himself useful as well as
agreeable, he so ingratiated himself with her as to cause a
reversal of her hasty decision. Katherine Lightwait will
have him; that was what she was saying, mentally, as he
touched the tips of her fingers with one hand and placed the
other several inches from her waist, to assist her across the
door-sill as they returned to the sick chamber.

“He's all right, now, madam,” says the doctor, hastily
getting a blood-specked towel out of the way with that professional
sleight of hand that is something more than adroitness.
“All right, now, and as bright as a new sixpence, Mr.
Dale and I have fetched him round.” He contrived to pay
Samuel a good many compliments in one way and another,
and it might have been noticed that in every instance he
was careful to address him as Mr. Dale, (he had always been
called Sam, or at best Samuel, till now,) and to pass over
the hiatus of his absence with a facetious allusion, and quite
as though he had been fishing or yachting, or upon some
other enviable pleasure excursion.

“I am fortunate and happy in being able to leave my
patient in such admirable care,” he said, shaking hands with
Samuel as he arose to go away. And then he said, “See to
it that our friend Peter is not gone hunting when I come to
see him in the morning.” This was gayly spoken, and
especially designed to comfort and reassure Mrs. Whiteflock,
which it did.

“The doctor is a dear little man,” she says, when he was
gone, and then she took her place by Peter's pillow, and, as
she chafed his hands talked cheerily of what they would do
next month, and next year.

When the evening candles were lighted, Martha, the
eldest daughter, came in all dressed for the show.

“I'm so sorry you can't go, father; it's really too bad!”
she says, fanning his face a little with the end of her white
veil. It would do you such good to see the elephant dance;
he weighs six thousand tons, would you believe it!”

“You must be mistaken, my child,” says the mother.

“O, well, maybe it was only six; but, anyhow, he's awful
big!”

She seemed in a whirl and flutter of excitement, and at
first told her mother that she would be home early, and then
that she would not be home till late, and then that she did
not know anything about it.

“Our Luty is going with me,” she said, “and he will take
care of me, you know.” And then she asked, as if quite
incidentally, for a key, which her mother usually had about
her. “I laid my best handkerchief in your drawer for
safety,” she said, “and I want it to-night.”

As the mother put the key in her hand she drew her down
to her and kissed her; “come home early,” she whispered,
“we don't know what may happen.”

“Of course I'll come home early,” says Martha, pulling
away, “but don't rumple my hair,” and with a coquettish
flirt of her petticoats she skipped away, without, as Samuel
remembered afterward, having evinced one particle of
natural, human emotion, from first to last.

Peter slept quietly, barring some incoherent talk now and
then, which was but the natural effect of the opium he had
taken, as the wife persuaded herself, and at midnight Samuel
prevailed on her to go away and take a little rest.

“I do wish the children would come,” she says, going to
the window and looking and listening, but all vainly, for
some token of their approach; and then she asks Samuel
if he thinks the show can be open at so late an hour.

“Nothing more likely,” he tells her, “and of course they
must stay and see the last of it; old heads can't be put on
to young shoulders, you know.”

“I wish they were here, for all,” she says, “I never like to
go to bed without knowing where they are.”

“There's the last of the show, now,” says Samuel, as the
blast of the bugle rung along the midnight air. “They will
be here shortly now, but don't wait; you need rest.”

She turns back from the window, her anxiety dissipated,
pretty nearly, and coming to the bedside, for a moment
bends tenderly over the sick man's pillow. His eyes are
partly open, and he tosses his arms about as though his
dream were uneasy. Tenderly she bends over him, and
softly she draws the sheet across his arms, though the night

is warm and he does not need the cover, and then, not daring
to touch him lest she may wake him, she kisses the thin,
faded hair that the wind is faintly stirring above the yellow,
glassy forehead, and then, keeping her face away from
Samuel, she steals on tiptoe from the chamber.

He gazes after her in amazement; she is grown handsome,
he thinks. And it is true. The white, misty, meaningless
look of her face is gone, and the old softness is all subordinate
to the energy, power and purpose of the newly
awakened soul, so that the woman is transfigured in her
very form and features; the external conformed to the internal,
insomuch that she seemed almost to have been created
anew.

“I only wish all this could have happened sooner,” mused
Samuel, glancing up and down the beautiful chamber, and
pondering doubtless upon what might have been.

Directly, he unbuttoned his waistcoat and took from an
inner pocket a small parcel, neatly tied in tissue paper, with
white satin ribbons. He looked at Peter to make sure he
he was asleep; looked about the room to make sure he was
alone, and then, stealthily as it were, untied the ribbons and
unfolded the paper, all his rough face brightening as with
the outshining of some sweet secret.

It was a tiny pair of slippers that the paper contained.
They were French, unmistakably, and of the fashion known
as breakfast slippers, and the little high heels, shining buckles
and rosettes of scarlet velvet were just so many separate
charms in the eyes of Samuel. He felt of the soft linings
of white kid, passed the smooth roses along his cheek, and
finally kissed the toe-tips, and then reënveloped and tied and
put them away as they were.

“Nonsense,” Uncle Charley had said to him, comprehending
their full meaning and intent, when in his boyish glee he
had ventured to exhibit them. “Nonsense! You had better
throw them into the gutter. Take my word for it, the more
you do for a woman the less she will think of you. What
women like, of all things, is just sweet nothings.”

After that Samuel had kept the slippers very carefully
under his waistcoat.

As soon as the daylight broke he took his place at the
south window, and with his cheek on his hand gazed and
gazed towards the brown gable wherein was a little square

window that had so often made a frame for the glad, girlish
face of Margaret.

What his dreams were we will not attempt to decipher,
but doubtless all the colors of the rainbow were in them,
for what can be brighter than a young man's dream of love!

When Mrs. Whiteflock took her place at the breakfast-table
she perceived that Luther and Martha had not preceded
her, as it was their habit to do; for these forward
children took the lead in all household arrangements,
usually.

“Run, little Peter,” she says, for he was always the readiest
to obey, “run up stairs and call your brother and sister.”

“O, mother! mother!” he cries, almost tumbling down
the steps, in the eager haste of his return. “Luty isn't in
his room! and he hasn't slept in his bed, neither; it's all
made up nice. Come and see!”

The mother required no invitation to go and see. She
flew up the stairs as fast as Peter had come down, and sure
enough she found it all as the child had said, and worse.
Luther was not only gone, but all his clothes and his gun
and his fishing-tackle were gone, as well, showing that his
absence could be referred to no trifling misdemeanor; he
had run away, that was plain, and with full and careful
preparation for the event. The room was strewn with
worthless and cast-off articles, such as old hats and boots,
broken ramrods, damaged powder-flasks, broken packs of
greasy playing-cards, novels in paper covers; and coarse
pictures of women in costumes made largely of jewelry and
long golden ringlets. Mrs. Whiteflock grew faint and sick,
perhaps not more that her boy was gone, as that she should
be the mother of such a boy.

Samuel did what he could to comfort her. “Many a
steady, sober man has sowed his wild oats in his boyhood,”
says he, and then he went in search of Martha. “Let us
see if he was with her at the show last night?” he says.

The door of the girl's chamber was found to be fast locked,
and to all the thumping and calling she made no answer.

“Force the door, if you can,” says Mrs. Whiteflock, speaking
calmly now, and standing white and straight as a column;
she had anticipated the worst.

Then Samuel set his shoulder against the door, and in an
instant it shivered off at the hinges. No Martha was there,

nor were there any traces of her having slept there. An
empty purse was lying on the counterpane. Mrs. Whiteflock
took it up. It was hers, and explained why Martha had
gotten the key the previous evening.

While they yet stood dumb with amazement, the smaller
children clinging about the knees of their mother, or catching
at the hands of Samuel and looking up helplessly in his
face, a violent ringing of the door-bell summoned them below.

It was the keeper of the toll-gate, ten miles away.
“I was afeared it mightn't all be right, ma'am,” says he,
“and I've rid post-haste to tell you that Luther Larky and
one of your gals driv through my gate at a furious rate, just
afore daybreak, this mornin'; they didn't so much as stop to
to pay toll; and though Luther had his hat over his eyes,
and the gal had her face veiled, I knowed 'em right away;
for it ain't the first time they've been sky-larkin' about together!
Then he says he is a'most sure, though he can't
swear to it precisely, that the carriage they were in was
Peter Whiteflock's, and that the critter afore it was Peter's,
too.”

“And were there but two in the carriage?” inquired Mrs.
Whiteflock.

“Only two,” says the man, “that I can swear to, for I
chased after 'em a good bit, not so much for the sake o' the
toll, as to overhaul 'em in case everything wasn't right.”

By this time the news had flown all over the village, and
men, women and children were observed to be walking past
Mrs. Whiteflock's house, as if they should see some wonderful
thing, because of what had happened. Some of the
bolder sort stopped at the gate and inquired after Peter's
health, as though it were but kindly solicitude that brought
them. All these people shook hands with Samuel; congratulated
him upon his good fortune, and contrived to make
it appear, beyond question, that they, for their parts, had
stood by him first and last.

So Samuel came to think more and more that his late
durance was solely and entirely owing to the bishop's son.
This, as the reader knows, was in part true, but not wholly;
it was the reputed fortune that made him so many staunch
friends, all of a sudden. Among the rest Mrs. Fairfax came,
ostensibly to condole with Mrs. Whiteflock, but it is certain
she knew of Samuel's being there.

She knew, indeed, within an hour after its occurrence, that
Peter had fallen down in a fit; that Dr. Allprice was in attendance,
and that Samuel was with him; and she inferred
that he would remain with him through the night. There
are persons who have an instinct for snuffing up the news
from afar; it seems to find them out of itself, almost, just as
the dry seed that is being wafted through the air becomes
food for the bird, that, by its nature, flies open-mouthed.
Mrs. Fairfax was this sort of person; and when she knew
what had happened, she turned it over in her mind to see in
what way she could turn it to her own advantage. She was
not long in arriving at conclusions. The doctor will visit
Peter again in the morning — conclusion first. Samuel will
still be with him — conclusion second. I, as will be right
and proper, will make an early call — conclusion third. This
sudden illness is a sufficient excuse, and I am not supposed to
know anything further.

A great deal more she thought which need not be here
set down. Samuel had not replied to her love-letter, and
the doctor's affections, since his engagement, had certainly
seemed remarkably disengaged.

The final conclusion of Mrs. Fairfax was, on reviewing
the whole ground, to write yet another letter, so ingeniously
worded that she might slip it into the hand of either Dr.
Allprice or Samuel Dale, as the prospects should seem to
warrant.

This letter she passed a great part of the night in composing;
and when it was completed, she, for one, certainly,
regarded it as a stroke of genius.

Proper names and personal references were carefully
avoided: dear and darling and sweetheart would apply to
both alike, and, cruel coldness, which she regarded as a very
fine combination of words, would, in the circumstances,
apply to both alike; and as for protestations of true love,
and everlasting fidelity, she could make them to one as
readily as to the other, and to both alike. Her preference,
just now, was pretty nearly an equal balance, indeed; but
if there were any difference, it was in Samuel's favor, so much
the more by the gold. She superscribed her letter, “For
the chosen of my heart,” and with the concealed weapon in
her sleeve, set forth bright and early, and having reached
her destination, mingled with the company like a detective
in citizen's dress, waiting to single out her man.

“My dear, dear sister,” she cries, falling on the neck of
Mrs. Whiteflock, and seemingly quite overcome by her
emotion. It is a good while before she can say any more,
but at last her faltering tongue whispers some disjointed
words of affection and sympathy.

Samuel shrinks away from her, and it suits her purpose
just then not to seem aware of his presence. She can talk
at him more effectively than to him, she imagines.

“We, mothers, have our own troubles, my dear,” she says,
wiping her eyes, and modulating her voice to a tone as sad
and tender as the turtle dove's. And then she says, “There
is my Margaret now, being courted by a man of almost
twice her years; you cannot know how it grieves me!”
And then she says, “Where there is disparity, it is so much
better that the woman should be the older.” She has always
remarked that such marriages are the happiest in the world.
Then she gets back to Margaret again, and plainly insinuates
that she is to marry with the bishop's son, though she is
careful not to call his name.

“But, after all,” she says, “it really does promise to turn
out happily, and if it should not, why, at any rate, my opposition
is useless; and what right, my dear, have I to be talking
of my troubles, when yours are so much greater.”

Then she says, for she conceives it will be appropriate to
the occasion: “The Lord loveth whom he chasteneth;” and
then she turns, and to her utter amazement recognizes Samuel,
and, staggering forward, falls quite upon his shoulder in
the bewilderment of her surprise and pleasure.

Of course she had said all she had about Margaret with
special reference to him, and in order that he might understand,
once for all, how useless was the prosecution of his
love for her, and how properly and wisely he might transfer
his affections to herself.

To prevent her coming to the ground, Samuel did actually
put his arm about her, and once having the advantage, she
kept it by main strength, and took care to draw all eyes
upon her by the obtrusive tenderness of her behavior. She
fondled his hands, pulled his hair, whispered in his ear, and
alternately petted and scolded with the privilege of very
tender and intimately established relations. At last, when
she got strength to stand alone, she took him by the shoulders
and turned him about; how handsome he was grown, to be

sure; didn't everybody see it, or hadn't everybody her
partial eyes? Then she tied the knot of his cravat anew,
and told him he was a bad, careless fellow, so he was, not to
pay more attention to his cravats and things. This show
of intimacy and fondness was kept up longer than otherwise
it would have been, doubtless, because of the entrance of
Doctor Allprice in the midst of it. She saw that he observed
her, and that he was by no means an indifferent observer,
and she resolved on the instant to put her experiment to the
touch, and win or lose in one way or another. “By the way,
Samuel,” she says, “I had something very important to say
to you! will you grant me just one minute, or half minute?”
and, without waiting his answer, she slipped her arm through
his and drew him aside. As they passed the doctor, she
says with two or three little nods, and the sweetness of two
or three smiles all in one, “a word with you directly about
my poor child.” Then she tells him she will join him in
Peter's room, and looking back over her shoulder and shaking
her finger at him, adds, “Wait there, I charge you, on
pain of my displeasure!” and so gathering up her outer
dress over the frills of her petticoats, she makes him a little
courtesy, and pushing Samuel before her, vanishes from view.

When they were alone, she changed her tone to one of
tearful reproachfulness. “Ah, Samuel, you have broken my
heart by your cruel neglect and slight of me! why did you
never answer my letter? if you would kill me, do it more
mercifully; here is my bosom — strike!”

“God 'a' mercy!” says Samuel, turning away his eyes,
“as if I wanted to strike you, or touch you any other way!
And now, once for all, let me tell you I don't!”

“You do not believe in my sincerity!” cries the widow,
hiding her eyes upon his arm; “but, to prove it to you, let
me show you what I have written for you, just for the relief
of my own bleeding heart, and not in the least expecting to
send it to you.” Her voice was quite broken with sobs now,
and she drew the letter from her bosom and presented it.

Samuel shook his head; “I don't want any love-letters,”
says he, “unless they're writ by little Margaret, and you
know that very well, and I won't be put off, neither, by any
of your insinuations about the bishop's son. If he has got
before me, I'll have it from her own mouth; so you keep
your love-letters for them that want 'em. I ain't one of 'em,

and I couldn't be, though you was to follow me to the day
o' my death. It's agin me to speak this way to a woman,
but no woman ought to provoke it, and you least of all, that
have known from the first where my heart was.”

Mrs. Fairfax was a good deal discomfited, but, not willing
even yet to accept defeat, does her best to force the letter
upon his notice. “You must at least feel for me,” she says,
“if you would only read it. Oh, my poor bleeding heart!”

Samuel shut his hand tight, so that she could not get the
letter into it. “As to your bleedin' heart, he says, “it isn't
a bleedin' one drop; and as to feelin' for you, I'd have to do
that if there was any feelin' about it, for you are not a
woman to waste your feelin's.”

“Strike! strike the last cruel blow!” she cries, almost
tearing open the kerchief that is pinned across her bosom.

“Them are strong words,” says Samuel, “but the same
words have different meanin's, accordin' as they're spoke.
Some have life a-beatin' in 'em like a pulse, and some agin
are like the cracklin' o' thorns under a pot.” And so, he
went away from her.

“I hope you are not out of patience with me, my dear
doctor?” she says, joining Dr. Allprice in the sick man's
room. “Mr. Dale detained me unconscionably!” And then
she slips the letter into his hand. “Here, dear Prosper, is
what I had to say to you.” And then she adds, having
stolen her idea from Samuel, “What are words, though, poor
words, unless my pulse was beating in them, and my heart
bleeding through them! Come to me, if only for this once.
To-night I will be waiting, at eight o'clock, in the garden
bower.”

She whispered all this, her voice trembling a little from
the effects of her late unfortunate interview, and the tears
that had risen close to her eyes, forced there by anger and
disappointment, coming out to full view just in the nick of
time to finish what was so well begun. Then the garden
bower, too, had its effect, probably. There was no earthly
reason why she should not have waited for the doctor in her
own drawing-room, but perhaps she had sought to throw a
gleam of moonlight and romance over the whole thing, and
in the estimation of the little great doctor, she did it.

“In the garden bower at eight?” he says. “I will be
there without fail, unless, indeed, I should be sent for by

either Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Jones — you understand — that
would put an end to the garden bower for to-night.”

Mrs. Fairfax did understand, and the reference to the
professional obligation spoke volumes. No confidence could
have been to her just then more reassuring; if he had said
Mr. Jones or Mr. Smith she would have felt the ground
beneath her feet much less stable.

“The doctor has been telling all about your dear husband,”
she says to Mrs. Whiteflock, who had just entered the room;
“it was nothing but the vertigo, nothing at all, you must
not be alarmed, my dear.”

“Don't let him know anything of what has happened,”
pleads Mrs. Whiteflock, putting her arm across the neck of
Mrs. Fairfax and looking at the doctor, so as to include both
in her appeal.

“Martha,” says Peter, raising himself on one elbow and
beckoning her to him, “I know all about it, so don't add to
your burden by trying to keep it from me. It will be better
to speak; don't you mind what the hymn says that they sing
in meeting:

And then he says he always thought that hymn the beautifulest
in the world; maybe because speaking was a privilege
that he didn't have right free. When, seeing the downcast
eyes of his wife, he makes haste with an emendation;
“because it was a privilege I did have uncommon,” he says.

Mrs. Whiteflock was sitting on the side of the bed now,
and taking up the hands that lay on the counterpane before
her, with nails so purplish, and veins so blue, she fondled
them against her bosom, and then she leaned down and
kissed the sunken cheek.

“O dear, Peter!” she says, all her heart trembling in her
voice, “how good you are, and how you shame me with your
goodness.”

“Do you know, my dear,” interposes Mrs. Fairfax, in a
thin, light little tone that seemed all on her lips; but Mrs.
Whiteflock did not attend; perhaps the thin tone made no
impression, and her tears were falling fast now upon the face
beneath her own.

Mrs. Fairfax, who with all her faults was a woman still,

could not immediately avail herself of her advantage. “I
will wait a little till the first flurry of feeling is over,” she
thought, “and then I will let her know that I have understood
all along how her daughter Martha and Luther Larky
were cutting up, and that young Luther was the variest
young scamp in the neighborhood, to boot!” This she
thought, and waited, biding her time.

Directly Peter tells his wife that about daylight that morning
he woke up, and at first saw only Samuel sitting at the
south window and gazing apparently at Mrs. Fairfax's house,
but that directly he became aware of another presence, that
of the celestial woman who had come to him so often of
late. “She was sitting just as you are, Martha,” he said,
“and with her soul speaking to my soul told me what had
happened to us through our children.”

“And indeed I could have told you long ago,” says Mrs.
Fairfax, “what was going to happen.”

Neither husband nor wife heeded this somewhat boastful
ejaculation; it is not likely they even heard it, and after a
moment Peter says, “It is I that am to blame, Martha, and
not the poor blind children; I reap as I sowed; men do not
gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles.”

“Dear, dear Peter,” whispers the wife, falling upon his
neck and taking him quite in her arms, “do not take the
blame all to yourself when so little of right belongs to you;
it is I who am responsible for all this; I own it with shame
and humiliation; I have not been a true wife, and an untrue
wife cannot be a true mother! O, Peter, if you would but
reproach me as I deserve it would be some relief, but your
kindness breaks my heart.” And, hiding her face in the
pillow, she sobbed as if her heart were indeed breaking.

“But my dear, you mustn't take on so,” says Mrs. Fairfax,
and partly by dint of coaxing and partly through tender
scolding she got her away at last; got her somehow seated
in the easy chair at the foot of the bed, for Peter had said,
“Don't take her out of my sight, my good friend.” She
smiled back to him, and then she laid her hands on the hot
forehead and smoothed the ruffled hair all softly away.

“I am not worth your care,” Mrs. Whiteflock sobbed, at
last, and then Mrs. Fairfax sat down on the arm of the chair,
and drew the hot head gently to her shoulder, and made
plaint and moan with her, for her own conscience was not

easy, and her heart was as much touched as such a heart
could be touched. She could not but remember that she
might perhaps have prevented one of these misfortunes, at
least, if she had chosen.

“No, I am not worth your care, good sister,” sobbed Mrs.
Whiteflock; “if I had not taken that bad man into my house
and heart, I wouldn't have been grovelling in the dust as I
am to-day. It is the old story; I warmed the viper, and it
has turned and stung me. O, Lord have mercy upon me;”
and she wrung her hands in despair.

Then Mrs. Fairfax told her that she was harder with herself
than any one would be with her, that she was worth her
care and her love, and that she should have them both; and
then, it may have been to pacify her own conscience in part,
she said, “You are a great deal better, my sister, than I
am,” and there she broke down, and the two women cried
together.

“I cannot ask you to pity me nor to love me,” said Mrs.
Whiteflock, when she could speak at all, “but I can, and do
ask you to forgive me, and to pray for me,” and then she
whispered, “there is yet another shadow advancing to close
about me, as you see,” and she put one hand across the neck
of her friend and the other about the knees of Peter, as he
drew them up, in his pain.

Then Mrs. Fairfax repeated the old threadbare sayings
about there being hope while there was life, and about the
miracles that were wrought by good nurses and good doctors,
and then she got back to the request for pity and for prayer.
“As to forgiving you, my sister,” she said — she omitted the
dear now — “I have nothing to forgive, and as to praying
for you, it were more fitting that I should ask your prayers.”
Still her conscience would not be pacified, it was like a hand
tugging at her arm, saying, “make full confession!”

This it was not in her nature to do, but the best that was
in her, she did. She made a half confession, glossing over
even that in some degree, and, the worser half suppressing
entirely.

“Do you remember, sister Whiteflock,” she says, “the
time I drank tea with you last, and about little Peter coming
in from the barn with some money in his hand?”

O, yes, Mrs. Whiteflock remembers very well. “And do
you know, sister,” she says, “I could never make the child

confess to this day where he got that money. Is it possible
you knew all the while?”

“No, I did not really know; if I had I should surely have
told you.”

Then she discloses what she did know, and what she suspected
— that is, what she partly suspected, as though it had
not been, to her, proof as strong as holy writ.

“Somehow, I forget how it was,” she says, “I happened
to approach the house by the way of the barn that day,” and
having recalled the circumstances, with her finger on her lip,
she says she knows how it was now; “She went to take a
look at the bantams about which she had heard, and being
at the barn side,” she says, “I just happened to peep in,
through a crack between the weather-boards, you know, and
what should I see but your daughter Martha and Luther
Larky, sitting side by side in the new carriage! in fact he
had his arm about her, and they were making courtship. Of
course I ran away on the instant, having heard nothing, and
knowing nothing that I felt privileged to reveal, especially
in the circumstances.”

She says this to remind Mrs. Whiteflock of her reticence
that day, and so in some sort to relieve herself of blame.

“But I did venture to hint my suspicions,” she goes on,
“and you, if you mind, sister, treated the whole matter in
such a way as to destroy my courage and prevent my speaking
out.”

Mrs. Whiteflock feels that she has been very much in the
wrong, and intimates it by a sigh and a little pressure of the
neck upon which her hand is lying, and Mrs. Fairfax goes
on to say that when little Peter came from the barn with
the handful of money, she did partly suspect, though she
didn't dare to say it, that it had been given him by Mr.
Larky for hush money.

“If you had only encouraged me by a little more openness
on your part,” she says, “I think I should have told you
all I suspected; but don't suppose I ever blamed you, or
thought you meant any coldness to me; not at all; I never
had a hard thought; I felt that you were troubled about the
illness of Peter, and about other things, perhaps, for we all
have our troubles, and that you paid as much heed to my
poor prattle as it deserved.”

And then she says she is sorry now that she did not at the

time, impart all she knew and all she suspected. And this
she spoke heartily, for she spoke truth.

“O, my poor foolish girl!” Mrs. Whiteflock murmured
again and again. “What will become of her and how little
she knows what she is doing.”

“What will become of her? Why she will be married,
of course,” says Mrs. Fairfax, “and in all likelihood she is
married now, trust her for that,” she says. “She is not the
girl to throw herself away. And, besides, they will repent
and be back here, asking forgiveness, one of these days,
mark my words!”

Then she goes on to say that runaway matches are usually
the most fortunate in the world, and tells how nearly she
once came to making one herself.

She wouldn't wonder one bit, she says, if Luther Larky
should turn about and make one of the best and steadiest of
husbands. Let me see! They will reach such a town by
such an hour, and there Brother So-and-so lives; he will
marry them. And in this way, though she knows nothing
about it, she quite makes the wretched mother believe that
one disgrace, at least, is saved. And as for young Luther,
she says, nobody need have any fears for him, he will take
care of himself; he is smart and likely, to an astonishing
degree!

Meantime, the whereabout of the lad has been definitely
ascertained. He has gone off with the travelling show.

“And a good school it is too! for a boy of his quick parts!”
cries Mrs. Fairfax. “He couldn't possibly be in a better.
Why I would not have him back on any account if I were
you. He'll make a man to be proud of, that he will.” Then
she tells how he came to her house the other day, and what
clever things he said, and proceeds to enlarge upon the
numerous advantages of his present situation.

“He will learn geography in travelling about the country;
he will learn natural history in taking care of the beasts and
birds; and he will learn music from the accompanying brass
band. Dear me, what could be finer!” And finally, before
she has done, she makes it appear quite as though a piece of
wonderful good fortune had befallen the house.

Mrs. Whiteflock, by dint of this sort of talk that is so light,
so almost empty, and yet so comforting, being gotten to look
up and to smile, the poorest, palest of smiles, Mrs. Fairfax

runs away, and directly comes back with a face never so
cheery, and bearing in one hand a cup of tea and in the
other a plate of toast.

The hour of distress and humiliation that she had hoped
to see come to her neighbor was come at last; and this was
her exultation, this was her triumph. Not at all what she
had lived in her imagination a hundred times over, she
would have felt mortified, most likely, if she had considered
the matter, and yet it was a much greater triumph than she
had planned; for, after all, there is no triumph like that over
one's self.

Not that she had completely vanquished her original
nature all at once; such achievements are not the work of a
moment, nor of a lifetime. She was simply proven not
totally depraved. The grub comes out a butterfly, to be
sure, but he is still a worm, with wings; and the snake sheds
his skin, but he is still a snake, nor is the shedding done all
at once; he leaves a patch on this bramble-bush and a patch
on that cleft of rock through which he has shoved himself,
and at last peels himself out, sleek and shining, but his
tongue is forked still, and his head flat, and he wiggles just
the same. No, transformation is not so easy.

That night, Mrs. Fairfax, being closed pressed by hard
chances, sloughed another scale. On returning home to her
house she found Margaret lying on her bed, sick, and ready
to die — so she said, poor child; and what should she do but
send straight for Samuel Dale.

“Come, my dear son,” she wrote in her note to him,
“come with all haste, and bring a clergyman if you will. I
am not in your way any longer; time perhaps, will heal my
heart, and I shall learn to be happy in your happiness.”
This last sentence, she concluded, would have no weight
with Samuel, and she rewrote her message omitting it, and
adding in its stead, “I write by the bedside of the dear child
whose last wish I perhaps obey in sending you this.” She
was crying when she wrote, for Margaret was in truth very
sick, and all her motherhood was aroused. She did not
make the tears, they came, but seeing them fall it occurred
to her that she might as well make the most of them, and
she so adjusted the paper as to blister it from side to side.
The tears she wisely said nothing about; it will not be supposed

that I knew of them she thought, and they will speak
for themselves.

“Do not come back without Samuel!” she charged the
messenger who carried her note. And then she took Margaret
in her arms and besought Heaven to spare her for the
sake of all the love that was in the world for her and for
her alone. She did not seem to evoke it, but somehow, the
thought of Samuel's money slid into her mind close beside
the prayer. While she listened for the expected footsteps, a
tiny note was brought her, sealed heavily with wax, and
shining at the edges with gilt. Her heart sank down within
her; would Samuel not come, then?

With trembling hand she tore the paper, there was no
signature to be found, and but just one word on the otherwise
blank sheet. “Mercy on me! What can it mean?”
she exclaims, and then all at once her face brightens with a
smile of placid satisfaction. She had read the name — Mrs.
Smith! The mystery was all clear. The doctor could not
keep his appointment, and this was his explanation and
apology, and though he had written page after page it would
not, probably, have been so eminently and entirely successful.

“That is his step,” whispered Margaret directly, “go, dear
mother, go and welcome him.” There was no need that
she should say whose step — the mother understood, and
having hastily concealed the charming letter, went to the
door, and there, sure enough, was Samuel. Wolf had been
before her with his welcome, and was half upon the ground,
and the other half upon Samuel's shoulder, making a little
mumble of joy against his face, and holding him round the
neck with both shaggy paws. “What a good boy to come
so soon,” she says, intending doubtless to signify a great deal
by substituting boy in the place of his proper name, and
while she put him inside the door with one hand, she took
Wolf by the ear with the other, and so, shut herself outside.

And shall we not imitate her example? We have no
right to follow him, it seems to me, at such a time.

At ten o'clock the doctor came, and was observed to
whisper for a moment in the ear of Mrs. Fairfax, adding
with professional promptitude, and quite aloud, “How is our
patient by this time.”

The whispered communication had been as brief as the

written one, and was as peculiarly delightful, converting all
the ground that had grown arid between them of late, into a
field of flowers, as it were. It was this: “A boy!” Why
he omitted the accustomed adjective that of right goes with
boy, I cannot pretend to explain, but suspect it was solely
owing to the exigent professional demand.